they have also given to five democrats on that he committee, total of $32,000 because they are in the energy business of course they will go buy the energy committee. you know there is a note from the hill, which was great. house democrat jerry connolly says he wants to change the title of the bill that would go after epa to the koch brother appreciation act. how accurate is that? i mean, how swamped is that energy committee by koch money? i mean, i think the facts speak for themselves, the numbers that you just threw out i think show exactly the type of influence that they have on that committee and i would also add to that that the head of the americans for prosperity co-authored an op ed with the chairman of the house energy and commerce committee on just how bad the epa would be to regulate carbon emissions. so it s money on one hand but it is also the access that they have with the lawmakers as well. well, we saw that access in wisconsin, when the fake koch brother called gove
they also decided to actually invest a lot of money directly into politicians themselves. they have given $11 million to federal candidates since 1990, 89% of that, of course, went to republicans. seeing that the strategy is working, they have actually stepped up their spending recently. americans for prosperity, which reportedly gets millions from the koch brothers, spent $45 million in the last election. in that last election, koch industries political action committee gave to 62 of the 87 freshmen house republicans. and this is a koch-fueled congress. the cops and their affiliates gave to 13 gubernatorial candidates in the last cycle. of course, ten of them were republicans. they also gave $1 million to the republican governors association. the list of governors they helped to elect include scott walker and john kasich, both of them who just happen to be rabid union busters. and that brings us to where we are in politics today. governor walker attacks the
unions. house republicans go after the epa and now paul ryan targets those pesky little safety nets, medicare and medicaid. the koch brothers are closing in on checkmate. citizens united allowed them to pour an unlimited amount of money into political campaigns. and now they have announced plans to spend $88 million on the 2012 election. they figured out the matrix. our politicians are up for sale and it s a good return on their investment and the cops plan to do a lot more buying. with me now is tony carp, the policy director for the center for american progress action war room and the aught ovthor of th report. great to be with you. great to have you here this had isn t just about the koch brothers, anybody about:buy politician and a lot of billionaires and millionaires do they are a perfect example here. what i found interesting is the first thing they did was to go buy the think tanks why do you think they did that? i think they wanted to number
rallies and kind of use that public anger to help further their ideological agenda to get rid of government, help pad their profits and at the same time, going to be hurting everyone else. i think a perfect storm. you have the tea party coming in, citizens united that lets them spend unlimited money. at the same time, my god this is a better return on investment than i imagined. the republicans giving us everything we wanted, right, put all that together, you think it is winning time, right? exactly. i think if you look at the success they had in the 2010 elections,ing if you look at now the house, energy and commerce committee, the koch industries the single largest oil and gas contributory that committee and that committee is the one that oversees energy policy in this country, also regulates carbon emission, things they have a personal interest in because that is what their business interest s i want to give the audience some facts on that, that it is amazing. they have given
so they began funding the so-called think tanks. and the last 15 years alone, they have given $85 million to 85 different groups. some of the amounts are jaw-dropping. according to the center for american progress, they gave over $13 million to the kate toe institute during that period, 12 million to the citizens for a sound economy. 4 million to the heritage foundation. in other words, when you hear someone from the cato institute quoted in the news and he is casting doubt on global warming, keep in mind that charles koch actually founded the cato institute and that koch industries subsidiaries have paid millions in environmental fines. that s not some neutral objective report you are hearing from the cato institute, it s a report that was bought and paid for by koch industries for a very specific purpose, so they can make more money by avoiding pollution regulations. the think tanks are to influence politician and end debate in d.c. but in case that s too subtle,